‘Scream 7’ Has Flames, but What It Lacks Is a Spark [Review]
Scream 7 marks the latest chapter in the beloved, long-running slasher franchise that began in 1996 as a fresh, postmodern satire that still functioned as a genuinely frightening horror movie. Thirty years later, its creator Kevin Williamson steps into the director’s chair for the first time in series history, and Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott, positioning the sequel as both a continuation and a fiery homecoming.
Yet, for a franchise built on upending expectations, this return plays things frustratingly safe and confusingly predictable. The central issue is a near-total lack of subversion or twist of the knife when it comes to audience expectations. The marketing campaign reveals far too much, including the lion’s share of its opening sequence, while the film itself offers few to no genuine surprises.
The original Scream famously and ingeniously disrupted audience expectations by killing off Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) in its iconic opening scene, paving the way for a franchise built on successfully flipping the script, or at least meaningfully reflecting on the genre’s current state of affairs. Even the fifth and sixth entries interrogated their modern horror landscapes through the lense of a reboot.
Scream 7, by contrast, only half engages with its own premise. The closest it comes to meaningful self-awareness is a brief moment from Mindy Meeks-Martin, played by returning cast member Jasmin Savoy Brown, who acknowledges that this chapter is all about nostalgia. And while the film leans on strange fan service and some half-hearted stunt casting, it never truly interrogates what nostalgia baiting means for a series that practically invented ripping into genre trends.
After Scream VI expanded the franchise’s scale, including its ambitious New York City setting, this sequel feels noticeably pared back. Smaller scope is not inherently a bad thing, but the reduced size also brings diminished energy. The story returns to Sidney Prescott, now living in a small town and raising her teenage daughter, Tatum, played by Isabel May and named after her late best friend. Sidney tries to maintain a stable life, navigating familiar mother-daughter tension while married to a supportive husband portrayed by Joel McHale, who seems constantly ready to wink at the audience but never receives the green light to do so.
Ghostface once again targets Sidney and her family, quickly placing Tatum and her circle of friends in danger. The setup deliberately mirrors the original’s structure, but the new teen ensemble never achieves—or is permitted—the dimension (heh) that the younger cast members of previous chapters enjoyed. Tatum, positioned as the film’s shiny new central figure, emerges as the weakest link. She comes across as underdeveloped and largely reactive, carried from scene to scene rather than driving the narrative. Her friends offer little personality or depth, and her boyfriend Ben (Sam Rechner) gestures toward familiar Scream archetypes without fully committing to any of them. Franchise chameleon and rising star McKenna Grace, cast as Tatum’s best friend Hannah, feels especially wasted, and given material that remains largely surface-level and vapid.
Thankfully, the story regains momentum when its legacy characters re-enter the frame. Courteney Cox returns as Gale Weathers and immediately injects her scenes with much-needed energy and charm. Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown reprise their roles as Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin, and their paired charisma consistently outshines that of the new ensemble. When these returning characters share scenes with the younger cast, the contrast becomes more apparent, highlighting the thinness of the new crew. Chad and Mindy were never really the secret weapons of the franchise, but here they become welcome, familiar relief when stacked alongside their latest contemporaries.
Neve Campbell, however, delivers a grounded and convincing performance. This iteration of Sidney Prescott feels human and imperfect, defined by protective parental instincts and slight emotional messiness. Campbell anchors the film with lived-in resilience that reminds audiences why Sidney remains the franchise’s necessary emotional core. It is refreshing to see a Scream film use her consistently, unafraid to make a grown woman its centerpiece after the last film left her out in the cold and the fifth entry used her sparingly.
While Scream 7 lacks meaningful surprises or subversion, it still offers moments of genuine tension and several effective scares. Though the trailer spoiled it, the opening sequence contains some of the film’s most satisfying nastiness. Still, the overall tone frequently leans more young adult than dangerous, and it never brushes up against meaningful social boundaries. It feels more aligned with the MTV series than it does its original trilogy.
Another significant problem is its lack of emotional cruelty. Scream has never been torture porn, and its nastiest moments worked because audiences cared about, or at least got to know, the people being slaughtered. Here, the film does not spend enough time with almost anyone to make their deaths resonate. And when it does, those characters are rarely compelling enough to worry about. Without that investment, the violence loses its sting. One character’s death carries genuine irony and cruelty, and it works only because a single line of context reframes the moment. Otherwise, the killings feel mechanical rather than tragic.
All in all, Scream 7 undeniably looks and feels like a Scream film. It preserves the franchise’s visual identity and provides flashes of tension, humor, and honest brutality. Its story does not damage the legacy and, at times, gestures toward new directions that could prove compelling in future installments. While the film remains functional and intermittently effective, it ultimately falls short of embodying the sharp, dangerous spirit that once defined the series.
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Scream 7
Summary
While there is some inventive brutality, ‘Scream 7’ offers up no meaningful genre subversion or real twists of the knife in terms of audience expectations.
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